Hate crimes rise against Muslims in Canada, but residents say abuse there is nothing new

▶ Government figures show a 253 per cent increase in incidents, including a fatal shooting at a Quebec mosque

Canada was one of very few nations to open its borders and embrace refugees fleeing war in Syria and elsewhere, as countries across southern Europe and the US shut their doors.

Film of prime minister Justin Trudeau handing over clothes and welcoming “home” the first Syrian refugees to land in Toronto in December 2015 was broadcast around the world.

But since then, there’s been a mounting backlash. Canadian government statistics show a 253 per cent rise in the number of police-reported, anti-Muslim hate crimes since 2014.

Six worshippers were shot dead at a mosque in Quebec City on January 29, laying bare the extent to which anti-Muslim sentiment has developed.

Shaila Kibria-Carter, 42, a mother of four, says she has lived with the xenophobia and racism for decades.

Ms Kibria-Carter was born and raised in Brampton, Ontario and her parents were immigrants from Bangladesh. She said she has faced abuse ever since her days as a college student when a swastika was carved into her dormitory room door.

Now she is worried for her children – two are in university and one is at school. Controversy has been brewing at high schools in the Peel municipality, which includes Brampton.

“Groups of people are going to these schools on Fridays, our day of prayer, to protest against Islam,” Ms Kibria-Carter said. “They wear T-shirts with ‘no Islam’ written on them.”

The protesters are demanding that schools stop allowing Friday prayers for Muslim pupils.

“We’ve gone to the police and they said they’d talk to the schools, but unless a student makes a complaint they said they can’t do anything,” says Ms Kibria-Carter. “These kids are born here. They consider themselves Canadian.”

Brampton’s mayor has spoken of her frustration at the protests, saying she was disheartened “to see hatred and prejudice towards a single faith group”.

More than 2,700 kilometres west in the province of Alberta, scuffles last May between Syrian and Canadian pupils sparked anti-Muslim protests at the Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School in Red Deer city, leading to police being sent.

Several Syrian students were accused of whipping their colleagues and a small group of protesters, including an anti-Muslim group called Worldwide Coalition Against Islam, converged outside the school to protect “Canadian culture”.

The demonstrators criticised what they believed to be the unfair punishment meted out to Canadian pupils, though the school said all eight students involved were suspended.

Ms Kibria-Carter said it was the attack at the Quebec City mosque by university student Alexandre Bissonnette that shocked Canadian Muslims most, and echoes the shadow of white supremacy in the US.

“That was a huge thing for us,” she said. “That happened right after Trump’s election. You look at Bissonnette’s social media posts. He is a Trump supporter.

“They were targeted because of their religion, my religion. It’s painful to know people are being killed for being Muslim.”

A car owned by the president of the cultural centre attached to the same mosque was destroyed in an arson attack outside his home last month, the latest in an increasing number of hate crimes directed at Muslims.

An attack in November 2015 badly damaged the only mosque in the town of Peterborough, Ontario, used by about 1,000 worshippers, and in Calgary a mosque was damaged twice within a week last October, when attackers left behind a hate letter and a burnt copy of the Quran.

Last March, the Canadian parliament was forced to respond to the rise in hate crimes by passing a non-binding motion condemning Islamophobia and called on the government to recognise a “public climate of fear and hate”.

A parliamentary report on how to quell Islamophobia is due for publication in November.

Farheen Khan, who was subjected to a hate crime assault in her hometown of Mississauga after 9/11, said Canada was not becoming less tolerant because it was never that accepting in the first place.

“I don’t know that we as a society are seeing the emergence of this type of behaviour for the first time. I think it’s been there but now there’s more of this language from people in positions of power,” she says, referring to Donald Trump.

In a bid for public office during Canada’s federal elections in 2015, Ms Khan said she was repeatedly subjected to “provocative questions” about her religion by sections of the media and in town hall meetings.

For the more than 48,000 Syrians resettled there, Canada is the last chance at a new start. Some recent arrivals from Syria refused to speak about the racism they said they’d experienced but activists say that for most, Canada has been positive.

“Canada is definitely a safe haven for all refugees,” said Bayan Khatib, a native of Syria and spokesman for refugee support group QED. “We have a multicultural society with a lot of resources set up for newcomers.

“A lot suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and they need additional support, the beautiful things for Syrians arriving here is that they get permanent residency status straight away.

They don’t have to go through a system of courts, like they do in

I don’t know that we are seeing this type of behaviour for the first time. It’s been there but now there’s more of this language from people in positions of power FARHEEN KHAN Mississauga resident and political candidate